THE MUSTARD SEED

The Parable of the Mustard Seed Matthew 13:31-32

“Building the Kingdom” Series

CONNECT People today are looking for purpose. They want to make a difference.  You have been created to impact the world around you.

Matthew 13:31–32 (NKJV) Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

EXPOSITION The passage is very straightforward. Everyone knows that seeds are smaller than the plant they produce. A single seed can produce a huge harvest.

In the Message translation, Eugene Petersen changes the elements of the story but not the truth of it.

Matthew 13:31–32 (MSG) Another story. “God’s kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, and eagles build nests in it.”

We understand pinecones and pine trees. We may not be as familiar with the black mustard seeds of Palestine and the shrub trees they produce.

An interesting thing about pinecones and pine nuts: the best nuts or seeds are in the smallest cones at the top of the tree. The only way to get them out is by a crisis, like a forest fire. The destruction of the fire causes the small upper cones to open and scatter their contents on the floor of the forest so that the trees that will voluntarily grow after the fire will be of even finer quality than the trees that were there originally.

1 Corinthians 3:13 (NKJV) each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.

Many of you are in a fire right now. Be encouraged that the fire you are going through will result in the finest works of God ever displayed in your life. The fire is opening you up and letting seeds of new life and new growth take good.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (NKJV) Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

INTERPRETATION Most commentators agree that the interpretation of this passage is that God’s Kingdom started small but will grow to fill the whole earth and allow any who will to take refuge under its branches.

Max Lucado says it as only he can in his book The Cure for the Common Life: Original readers caught quickly the pictures of this parable. They knew mustard seeds and leaven lumps. Both were small: the seed the size of a freckle, the leaven no larger than the end of your thumb. Yet a tiny mustard seed can erupt and reach for the clouds, growing to three times the average height of the ancient Jew, boasting bushy branches large enough to house a homeless flock of birds. A pinch of fermented dough can feed forty people three meals a day for several days. What begins minutely ends massively.

Maybe the early church needed this reminder. What clout do a tiny manger and a bloody cross carry in a forest of Jewish tradition and Greek philosophy? How can a backwoods movement headed by a rural carpenter gain traction in a religious world dominated by Epicureans, Stoics, and Gnostics? This is a kid on a skateboard entering the Daytona 500.

Don’t we need a reminder today? We, at times, fear the smallness of Jesus’ story. Our fear might keep us from seed sowing. Can the Sunday school account of Jesus hold its own in the Ivy League? Do terms like “sin,” “salvation,” and “redemption” stand a chance in this sophisticated day of humanism and relativism?

Apparently, they do. Where are the Romans who crucified Christ? The Epicureans who demeaned and debated Paul? The Gnostics who mocked the early church? And the great temples of Corinth? They dwarfed the infant church. Do worshipers still sacrifice to Zeus? No, but they still sing to Jesus.

God does uncommon works through common deeds.

APPLICATION The key to this passage is how we apply it to our own individual lives. You are the small, seemingly insignificant seed that God is planting in His field, the world. How do we expand the Kingdom of God? By being planting. The world is not changed all at once, but by multiple singular acts of kindness and obedience and vision.

Zechariah 4:10 (NKJV) For who has despised the day of small things?

One Solitary Life is a popular poem about the life of Jesus Christ written by James Allen Francis.

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned–put together–have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.

Jesus built His Kingdom on His own death. He is calling us to do the same thing.

John 12:24–25 (NKJV) Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Seed must fall to the ground and die. What are you willing to die to, to die for, to give away, to sacrifice, to sow for the Kingdom’s future? Little is much when God is in it; He uses ordinary people to accomplish His Kingdom work.

1 Corinthians 1:26–29 (NKJV) For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Henry Varley said to D. L. Moody, “Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him!” Moody determines to be that man and led one of the largest revival movements in the history of the world.

One life does make a difference! Every move we make and every action we take, matters not just for us, but for all of us … and for all time.

Andy Andrews talks about in his book: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. (Read from Kindle)

God wants to use you! You are the mustard seed. He wants to plant you in the world and bring the Kingdom to full display in your life! You may feel insignificant, but you are a mighty seed.  Remember, a seed carries the DNA of the entire plant.  You are the seed of God; you carry the DNA of God with you and in you.  A seed also has life in it.  Scientists have reproduced seed in a lab, but when they planted it, it would not grow.  Why? No life.  You have the life of God in you. John says, “He who has the Son has life!” When you are planted by God, His life breaks out on everything you encounter!

Let God plant you in the field of His choosing.  Find a cause, a purpose that will fill both you and the void you see.  In doing so the Kingdom will grow and bring forth fruit!